Cartoon Physics
by aptasi
Summary: Miso fixes everything.


Summary: Miso fixes everything.

Standard Disclaimer: I'm just a fanfiction author. All hail the rightful owners.

Specific Disclaimer: While a dear friend assures me that miso does, in fact, fix everything, my own experience has been a little bit more spotty. Miso should not, in my opinion, be combined with yogurt and moderate digestive distress. All other attempts to use miso as a panacea should proceed under your own best judgment and at your own risk.

Content Disclaimer: This fic is cracky and shows disregard for the laws of physics. And possibly also good taste...

* * *

"I don't get it boss." Moe muttered, as he started to wonder what exactly he was doing with his life. "How exactly does this uh... work as a safe house?"

Carmen shrugged and flipped the steak on the grill. "No one found us."

"Well of course not," Lars laughed, sitting back on a woven beach chair and sipping some mixed drink with a name that referenced copulation. "Who'd expect us to be here."

"No one." A voice carried from inside."Because neophyte criminal gangs are not supposed to spend their weekends at beach houses discussing the habits of the local dolphins over..." the voice sniffed "over surf and turf!"

Ignoring the commentary on how she chose to run her new and ambitious company, Carmen called out sternly. "Sara, come outside and join the group."

"No!" The voice yelled back sulkily.

"Yeah..." Lars suggested. "Get some sun." He, of course, was enthusiastically taking his own advice, sporting a bright white sunscreen nose and a paisley hat whose shape parodied Carmen's. Safety first, after all.

"Sun is evil!" The paranoid screen door growled, spitting out the words extremely quickly. "And really Carmen, what are we doing here?"

The juvenile thief shrugged her shoulders. Tongs clinked on the edge of the grill, as Carmen looked across the edge of the deck over the tropical cliffs, towards the growing sunset. "I was feeling a hint of seasonal depression in New York." She wafted the smell of grilled meat and vegetables towards herself, and inhaled with delight. "So I decided that I'd take care of it before it got any worse."

"But to what end?" The voice whined.

"Mental health is an end unto itself, Sara." Carmen chided. She sighed. "I really need to find a way to get that across to you."

Stretching himself out, Lars remarked. "Yeah boss I don't think your Aristophanes references are working."

"Aristotle." Moe corrected meekly.

Lars glanced over his shoulder at his buddy, with a distinctly quizzical expression. "Whatever."

"And that's my point!" Sara retorted. "Are you really going to take advice from that man? Have you read his _Physics_? Anyone who predates Newton is insane and not to be taken seriously!"

Undeterred, Carmen lectured. "The sun is not going to kill you, Sara."

"Is too! I have studies!"

Not missing a beat, Carmen added. "Sara, if you do not eat dinner with the group, I will go into one of those derivations you're always working on, and somewhere, I won't tell you where, I will create a sign error."

"Are you threatening me?"

Carmen shrugged languidly and delivered her words with practiced blackmail skill. "Maybe one error, maybe two... maybe none. Who knows."

A loud squawking sound came from Sara's throat. "You wouldn't!"

"And propagate it."

After a silence, the scientist asked meekly. "Can I bring my project?"

"Do you really think that's wise?"

A nitrile gloved hand could be seen gripping the wood frame. "Please?"

Ignoring the request, Carmen turned to Moe and held out a spoon. "What do you think this sauce needs?"

The heavyset man jumped and looked around to see if she was asking someone else. "Well I..."

"Miso!" Carmen exclaimed, digging around in the ingredients. "Of course. Miso fixes everything."

A meek head poked around the door. Promptly, Lars and Moe started laughing hysterically.

Carmen finished stirring in the miso. "Behave."

"But she's got..." Lars couldn't get his breath, "Sunburn marks..." He wheezed. "From her safety goggles."

Sara whined. "Carmen this is why I didn't want to do this!" Hopping on the balls of her feet, the scientist quickly ticked off points on her fingers. "Reactions require energy to overcome their activation barriers. Sunlight contains energy, plank's constant times its frequency per photon. A sunny day has a lot of photons. And my repair enzymes cannot cope with all of the thymine crosslinks this... this tropical vacation is creating! You know it's all really a problem with the energy levels..."

While the scientist continued her recitation, Carmen calmly returned to the grill. "Moe I need your opinion on this sauce."

"Ok..." With a bounce in his step, Moe accepted the cutlery, and then dissolved into laughter again. "I'm sorry it's just so funny..." The spoon flicked, and the sauce flew, over the deck and onto the electrical gadget at Sara's feet. The contraption loudly hissed, and it's strange pattern of lights exchanged itself for one large blinking red one.

Brimming with fury, Sara exclaimed. "Stay away from my gadgets you dilapidated whale!"

"Wha..." Moe hung his head sheepishly. "You can't talk about my weight, Carmen said!"

"Can too! Because you messed up my project and you deserve to be fired!" Sara shouted.

"Well I..." Moe stammered.

"From a cannon!"

Moe started sweating a little. "Boss?"

"Moe relax." Carmen stood up and began giving orders. "Sara, I'm sure it's just a circuit component."

Sara's eyes darted left and right. "Be right back." She muttered, grabbing the box and running from the deck.

"I can't believe you didn't wait for me!" The scientist exclaimed, and stomped her foot, when she returned to find the dinner dishes cleared.

"It's been two days." Carmen slowly measured out her words. "And I think you're a little dehydrated."

"Oh."

Sighing, Carmen gently but very deliberately escorted Sara to a chair. "What took so long..."

"I um..." Her shoes really didn't go with the rocks. "I kind of broke physics."

"Hang on a sec." Lars interrupted loudly. "When you say broke, do you mean broke as in a couple really old nerds are gonna be upset about this, or do you mean broke as in up is now down or something?"

"It..." Sara swallowed. "It's more like down is a little less... down, then before?" She grabbed a stick and started drawing Greek letters in the sand.

Carmen calmly took away the stick. "Prose, Sara."

"Well my project doesn't really work as an analog controls box anymore..."

Carmen poured some water into a glass, and moved it towards her least sane employee. "Then what does it do now?"

Turning on the box, Sara responded. "I'll show you." Without further preamble Sara stepped up to Lars and gave him a good push. The henchman stumbled and fell off the edge of the deck, down the tropical rocks.

As Moe shouted and stood up, Carmen crossed the space to the edge in a matter of milliseconds. As she frantically rushed to the edge...

"Whee!" Lars happily splashed around in the sandy surf. "Boss, that was so much fun!"

"He fell two hundred feet..." Carmen mused. "Into an inch of water."

"And he's fine." Unfazed Sara turned off the box. "But you see now if you do this with the controller off..." She stepped towards Moe.

"Wait wait..." Carmen interjected. "If this is going where I think it's going, then I don't need a demonstration."

"Awww." Sara complained.

Carmen's smile was growing at a slow but not decreasing rate. "You should write a paper on this."

With arms wildly waving Sara exclaimed. "You really want me to explain this to... to reviewer number three? Are you bonkers?"

Now that she was convinced Moe was safe, Carmen found herself a chair and reclined it back. "So how does this work?"

"Work?" Sara swallowed. "What do you mean work? This violates causality. It turns Newtonian mechanics off. I don't even know how to describe it."

Carmen kicked off her sandals and put her feet up. "Try an analogy."

"Um... ok... the physics is like a" Sara hesitated. "A platformer?"

"Huh?" Moe said.

"Um... like Mario Brothers?"

"The video game?" Carmen asked.

"You're right that's a totally wrong explanation, what was I thinking..." Sara started pacing. "It doesn't seem to matter how far you've fallen... it's all about what you're falling on. I mean as long as you're not landing on spikes or literally driving into a bottomless pit."

Carmen nodded. "And how reproducible is this?"

Sara waved her arms. "This thing's turned on, you get cartoon physics for a mile around. I don't know how or why. That's what happens. I can also get the effect if I make the same circuit but smaller, as long as I soak two of the transistors in miso." She held up a several devices, each the size of a box of matches. "See... new toys. That's fun right?"

Suddenly, Carmen's eyes lit up. "So with this, you'd have no reason to be afraid of heights at all."

Sara shrugged. "True enough."

The master thief nodded to herself. "You could balance on a airplane wing and not have to worry about falling."

"Well I don't know that anyone could... ok yes."

"Or someone else getting hurt going after you."

"You'd have to be a few elements short of a table to go after..." Sara suddenly got it. "Oh."

With so much visible excitement, the master thief was practically dancing. "We definitely have a use for this."

"We have something better than a use." Sara exclaimed. She jumped in the air. "We have an application!"

Moe winced and looked down the hill at Lars. "I don't even like roller coasters." He whimpered.

Sara cackled. "Too bad. Now, I'm famished. How about dinner?"

"Well I suppose that was a productive use of two days." Carmen took a plate from the chiller and handed it over.

"I also discovered a compound that prevents hair from tangling even if you hang from your ankles out of a helicopter." Sara remarked, unceremoniously tucking in. "But really now, who'd have a use for that?"

_The End_


End file.
